[netperf-talk] Multiple Connections netperf

[Rick Jones]

Matthew Faulkner wrote:
> Hey All,
> 
> From my understanding netperf can only perform tests for a single
> connection between the client and the server.

That is correct - one instance of netperf, once connection.

> Is it possible for netperf to create multiple connections between two
> machines? i.e. we have a single client machine which creates 10
> connections to a single server machine and then the results
> aggregated. Obviously this could be done using several different
> instances of netperf, but seems less than ideal since timing issues
> would come about during the setup and tear down of the control and
> data channels.

With netperf2, the only way is with multiple instances.  To deal with 
skew errors I tend to length the runtimes and (ab)use the confidence 
intervals with a fixed number if iterations:

netperf ... -i 20 ...

so it repeats each data point that many times.  There is a bit more 
about that in the manual:

http://www.netperf.org/svn/netperf2/trunk/doc/netperf.html

Now, netperf4:

http://www.netperf.org/svn/netperf4/trunk/

is designed from the ground-up to support concurrent tests and such, and 
has all the infrastructure (and overhead) to do it.  It uses XML config 
files rather than command-line arguments, and in all honesty, the UI 
could use a lot of help :)  Still, if you want things "just so" wrt 
synchronized measurements of multiple connections then netperf4 may be 
where you want to start playing.

happy benchmarking,

rick jones

> 
> 
> Matt